What is a Sprint?

The sprint is the basic unit of work for a Scrum team. 0:00 And it may be the feature of Scrum that most differentiates it 0:03 from other agile models. 0:07 A sprint is a single iteration carried out by a team. 0:09 A team may complete several sprints on its way to preparing a release of software. 0:12 A sprint starts with a team committing to work to be done, and 0:17 ends with a demonstration of potentially shippable product. 0:21 While many details on a backlog item may be figured out before the team 0:25 enters a sprint, most of the work to develop and 0:29 test the feature happens within the sprint. 0:32 If you ask me to name a single feature of the sprint that is fundamental to its 0:35 success, I'd say it's when a team commits to the work to be done within the sprint. 0:39 One of the things I've learned while teaching, 0:44 is that learners are motivated and feel effective, 0:46 when they are empowered to make choices about the work they commit to. 0:49 In Scrum, the team meets for planning at the beginning of the sprint. 0:53 And, the development team members make estimates on the effort of each item. 0:57 They reach consensus on how many items they can commit to. 1:01 We'll learn more about the sprint planning event later in the course. 1:04 The length of a sprint is no longer than one month, and 1:08 it is sometimes referred to as a time box. 1:12 This means that the team is agreed. 1:15 That the sprint can't grow beyond this time limit and 1:17 everyone is committed to completing the sprint within the arrange time box. 1:20 I've worked on teams with two week and three week cycles and 1:25 I've even talked to teams that run a new sprint every week. 1:28 Each sprint typically has the same duration, 1:32 which allows the team to form a rhythm or cadence to their work. 1:34 A new sprint begins immediately after the previous sprint is completed. 1:37 A cadence helps to keep the team's momentum going and 1:42 provides a predictable pattern to the work. 1:45 The term "potentially shippable product" 1:47 is one you will hear a lot when discussing a sprint. 1:50 This is because, as declared in the agile manifesto, 1:54 we value working software over comprehensive documentation. 1:57 The idea here is that at the end of each sprint, 2:01 we will have software that has been designed, built, and tested. 2:04 The team has an agreed upon definition of done, 2:09 which you will learn about later in the course. 2:12 The sprint product may be used internally, within the organization, or 2:14 may be shipped to the customer. 2:18 Either way, the team stands behind its sprint product, and 2:20 delivers value to the organization. 2:24